News & analysis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, by Matthew Stiegler

“Alito Recalls Garth as ‘Epitome of Dedication'”

The title of this post is the headline of a story by David Gialanella in today’s New Jersey Law Journal. One highlight:

As a jurist, Garth was “the epitome of dedication,” “extraordinarily fair” and “very, very open-minded,” Alito recalled. Even when the circuit’s practice of sua sponte taking a case for en banc review had fallen by the wayside, Garth “continued to read every opinion very carefully” before it was issued, according to Alito.

Garth’s greatest lesson, according to Alito, was to study the record to form a better understanding of why the below court reached the ruling it did.

Judge Garth was in both attitude and demeanor a model judge. He wanted to get every case right, no matter how obscure it was, and he did cases by the book. If you listen to Richard Posner, you’ll hear that judges reach decisions that seem sensible on pragmatic grounds and then reason backwards to get there. Not Judge Garth. He was obsessed over the record and the standard of review.